The west shore., May 01, 1884, Page 134, Image 10

THE WEST SHORE.
134
Tlmir fltnoricnce with the
whites had not Deen a
. i. . r.t otv.k. and
pleasant one. They JioU stolen 4imu., -
lor thin their country had been invaded, their warriors
.lain, their women made captives, their villages burned
and many of their horses taken away. The next year
they amply revenged themselves upon the helpless euii
m.nu wlw. iwissed through their country. From the
Modoo Btnimint tliey were as well justified in attacking
indiscriminately all white men they encountered, in view
of the death of their warriors and the destruction of their
villHL-os. as had these men to invade their country because
of the loss of a few Btock, and attack indiscriminately all
the Indians they could find, without regard to their guilt
or innocence of the depredations which had been com
mittal. Modocs were killed wherever found, and they
mlnliiitixl liv killinir white doodIo wherever found. This
- - - rj
idea should bo borne in mind when reading of the horri
bio events of the following year.
Harry L. Wells.
THE GREAT NORTHWEST.
V.
IT was not my intention when I began this series of
paers to account ho fully for the origin of "The
Great Northwest" as I have beoii doing, but have uncon
sciously drifted back far into the prehistoric. Neverthe
less, it is important to a clear understanding of the work
of evolution that is still going on in this region. Nature's
two jKiwerful workers, fire and water (igneus and aque
ous), although mutually destructive of each other when
brought face to face in conflict, yet work harmoniously in
building up islands and continents. Let us still give a
free wing to' fancy and watch the giant forces that are
forming and maturing our earth.
Knowing that certain causes uroduce enrtuin vffaMc,
keeping in miud tho analogies of Nature, and reasoning
by a comixirisoii of the unknown with the known, it.
not, aftr all, so great a stretch of the imagination, look
ing through tho glasses of science, to describe how our
anet was formed. Professor Agassi was wont to say
that give him a single vertebra of fish, reptile, bird.
quiru.i or man, aided by his knowledge of compara
tor anatomy ami natural history, he could forthwith
Sf'.Stitnr1 fn-erthegeolo-
7 " 7 uw of the great natura1
force, can build a world. r;.,i
l.;i I t . . , ' "V w -asassiz COU d
miM the annua fnm a Billgle jobt
spinal column or baeklRme.
Science. Hinnii ia ..... l .i
1U1 , I 'wwn tne present aud the
IU mag.o fingers lift the curtain aid we gaze upon
tlio subhmo scene ..f .i. i . " fell'0 UPU
th it birth. A seething ,XHn of Z V i
on iu axis t th J! r ? ' W,urUll8
1 : " Ut U,e ' thousand miles
upon tl fiery bill . " i 1 M 8
on all
' 8 boiling, like niol
iron, now it wildly leaps forth as if to embrace the fierv
ciouas; now lemiug, uuummg, u&o uio xiger lor a fatal
spring, it sends its are-capped DiUows into the very
bosom of the burning sky ! JJut I despair. It is not for
mortal pen to picture a scene so sublime. The TartaroB
of tho Greeks, where the fcmbs PhlcgoiLou 10us im
waves of fire, is but a Chinese fire-cracker when com.
pared with it .
There is no day here now, for the sun's rays can no
more be seen in the blinding light of melted metals than
the dim beam of a tallow dip in the midst of the electric '
ight There is no night here, to bring rest and repose
with its cooling dews and soothing shades. There is no
autumn with its "rainy season," no winter with its frees
ing blasts, to mitigate the burning heat
Where, then, was all the water that is now contained
in our oceans, laices ana rivers r it naa not yet been
formed not a jingle drop. Its elements (hydrogen and
oxygen) were everywhere; but water can form only
under certain conditions, and these conditions were not
present There were no coal measures then, no lime
stone, for" all the carbon was far away from the earth.
All the stones and all the metals were then in a like
condition, resolved by the beat into their original ele
ments, and by the heat driven off into space in spite of
gravitation.
We take no note of time as we gaze upon our embryo
planet, for no dial has measured its hours, no pendulum
has paced its seconds. The heat radiates into space,
reducing the temperature of our globe at its surface. As
the ice forms on the bosom of a lake, so rock on the sur
face of the shoreless, fiery sea. The rocks form, break
into fragments by the tossing of the fiery billows, re-form
in a greater mass, again to be crushed and broken liie
sheets of ice in the wildly rushing torrent Bound and
round the globe the molten waves incessantly roll, toss
ing, tumbling up the embryo crust into craggy islands,
against which dash the fiery waves and congeal into roci
and girders, binding the islands into continents that
reach forth toward each other until the fire is covered
and its glory hidden from our view. It now ceases to
shine as a star in the heavens. Henceforth it mnsi
depend upon other bodies for its light, and finally, whet
miles in depth of crust have been formed, its heat also.
Professor William Denton, wno lost his life last year
in his devotion to science, in an effort to make plain the
process by which our earth has arrived at its present
advanced state, reverses the order of events, lmaguung
the earth to be gradually heated until it assumes the
condition of vapor. I like this method of elucidatioa
and will imitate him. We will imagine that an infii""
command has gone forth to "Heat up!" With wh
interest we watch the process and observe the attending
phenomena. Already the tropical regions have beeow
uninhabitable, and a general migration to the north
everything bavins animal life ensues. The polar i
melta like snow beneath our balmy "Chinook"
""'"""u xaa temperate zones uewun
there is another migration. The fish of the lak 13